Bad Morning
by PuppetMaster55
Summary: An unofficial sequel to Dissipation by sapphireswimming. Jack Fenton's morning routine is about to be altered.


Okay so basically I read sapphireswimming's Dissipation and it hit me hard, so hard I left a kinda-fic as a review, and had to expand it into an actual fic. So. Here's the officially unofficial sequel.

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Bad Morning

The morning begins like any other. Their alarms go off at five sharp, and they're off, shuffling out and to the kitchen. Jack's a morning person, up and awake and bouncing, while Maddie can only shuffle, mumbling incoherency and barely awake. Most of their ideas comes out of this time, form Maddie saying something about ghost containment or protection and Jack writing it down, expanding on the idea with harder science than Maddie has the brainpower to comprehend. It takes twenty minutes for their coffeemaker to finish brewing, and another half hour before the caffeine makes her anything resembling awake.

"C'mon Mads," Jack says, prodding her into a seat at the table. He nudges her mug away from the edge of the table, and she blinks sleepy eyes at him and smiles. "Awake enough to start the eggs and bacon?"

"Getting there," Maddie says, taking a big gulp of coffee. "Get the kids, Jack, it's your turn."

Jack nods, gives Maddie a kiss – and gets a contact high from the espresso blend that Maddie loves – and move to the stairs. Jazz's room is further away, but she's always been the easier of their kids to wake up. She shares Jack's penchant for morning alertness, and after a quick knock, she's bustling past him, heading to the bathroom to shower and change. Jack waves her off with a smile, heading to Danny's room.

Until recently, Danny had been a morning person too, up and awake and as chipper as Jack. But then there was the accident, and now Danny could barely get out of bed most mornings. Jack was concerned about his lack of energy, same as Maddie, but Danny acted like everything was fine, and seemed to expect them to act like it too.

He knocks on the door, expects a muffled groan, the soft _whoomph_ of the pillow hitting the door, but there's nothing. Jack frowns, steps closer – his books _splurch_ into the carpet, and Jack glances down at it with a frown. The carpet around Danny's door is wet, and sticky, and he wonders if there's a leaky pipe somewhere in the walls. He wonders if Danny's actually awake, and goes to turn the knob. It moves, stops, rattles when Jack tries to turn it again. Locked.

Jack's frown deepens. Danny's rarely locked his door, always kept it unlocked. He only ever locked it when he went up to study after school, or if he had a big test the next day and wanted to hunker down and cram. But he's never fallen asleep with the door locked.

Jack steps away, walking back down the stairs. His boots squish on the carpet, wet from the puddle. In the light, the footprints glint a bright green as the substance seeps into the carpet.

They keep a set of keys on an old wall-mounted coat hook in the kitchen, a gift from Maddie's Mom back when they were living out of a small apartment in Madison. Each of their keys are unique, Danny's a space-y blue with a NASA logo across them. Jack plucks the room key off the hook, listens to the sizzle of eggs in the frying pan.

"Strangest thing," he says, catching Maddie's attention. "Danny's door is locked."

Maddie frowns. "That's odd." She glances up at the ceiling. "You don't think he's got a cold?"

"He could have one," Jack says. "There's a puddle in his doorway. Maybe he got a cup of water during the night and spilled it."

"And locked the door?" Maddie's frown deepens. "Could be that leaky pipe we keep hearing by his room."

"That's what I'm thinking," Jack says, palming the key. It feels small and cold, even through his gloved hand. The eggs smell delightful, and his stomach grumbles in hunger. "Might have to call a plumber to fix it."

"Get Danny first," Maddie admonishes, gently elbowing him in the chest. " _Then_ breakfast."

Jack leaves the room, heads back to the stairs, spots the dark imprints of his boots, wet and sunken into the carpet. _Definitely a burst pipe_ , Jack thinks. The smell of eggs follows him, trailing after and singing a tune that his stomach wants. But like the crew of the Odyssey against the sirens, Jack ignores it, deaf to the tune. Halfway up the stairs Jack is nearly bowled over by Jazz.

"Sorry Dad," she says, sounding not at all sorry. "Gotta get breakfast! Have to give my tutoring group their graded worksheets before classes start!"

"Alright, Jazzypants!" Jack says, stepping aside and clapping her on the back. "Say, Danny didn't say anything to you yesterday, did he?"

"Danny?" Jazz falters, slowing down and half turning. She steps in a wet footprint, glancing down at it before focusing back in on Jack. "No. He didn't talk to me yesterday."

"Is that so," Jack hums. "Well, good luck with your tutoring!"

Jack turns away, Jazz heading down into the kitchen. Again, his stomach growls at the unfairness. Jack pats his tummy, murmuring, "Soon. Just gotta get Danny up."

The key slides into the lock, clicks as it turns. The door clicks open, and starts to swing. Jack has to push hard, his boots squishing deep furrows into the carpet and forcing green goo to ooze out of it. Jack doesn't notice, pushing the door open. He steps forward, grunting triumphantly as the door gives way, swinging open. Behind him, unnoticed, his footprints have flattened out the carpeting, and are covered in a thin sheet of glowing green goo.

"Good morning Dann-o!" Jack says, waving at the empty bed. He pauses, staring at it in confusion before he registers the form laying on the floor. "Danny!" Jack says. "Are you oka–"

Jack freezes, the word dying in his throat, falling limp out his mouth and crashing to the floor in a deafening silence.

Danny is still, stiller than Jack's ever seen him. And there's green, too. Jack dazedly stares at the trail of green dragged along the floor and too Jack's feet. He glances down, and behind him, at the green footprints. He stares at the door, where thin tendrils of the green goo – _ectoplasm_ , his mind says, _this is ectoplasm_ – connect the doorknob to the floor, where the ectoplasm is smeared over the lock and low on the edge of the door. Jack follows the trail to the huge pool around Danny, to the smaller pool and smear just below the window – where there's a splotch of ectoplasm that drips down to the floor and carries over in even more tendrils to the start of the trail.

He sees the the ectoplasm is on Danny too, trailing down every inch of him that Jack can see in thin rivulets that seem to start from nowhere and everywhere.

Jack faintly notices that he's fallen to his knees, can hear Maddie and Jazz's concerned voices grow closer, their own footsteps coming up the stairs.

Jack sees the puddle of red, set squarely in the center of the ectoplasm puddle surrounding Danny. And he sees–


End file.
